1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for formation of a switching network in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) on basis of a "Banyan" network. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for assignment of input port numbers, so as to be capable of 3-dimensional installation of the switching network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, switching networks based on the Banyan network come into wide use for the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching networks. An ATM switching network generally requires transmission capability of at least hundreds of megabits per second (Mb/s) of transmission speed per port and a larger scale switching network for such high transmission speed. However, as noted in the art, various limitations in some hardware factors exist in areas such as reception of circuit components in a printed circuit board and its size. A fiber of connector pins and a number of connections in a printed circuit board (PCB), transmission speed per link, etc. would be quite difficult in developing to a larger scale of Banyan switching network.
On this matter, among the exemplars of a contemporary practice are White (U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,540, Automatic Topology Monitor For Multi-Segment Local Area Network, Aug. 13, 1996) discussing an automatic topology monitor for multi-segment local area network, which includes segment monitor nodes which report the presence of new end nodes to a network manager node. Dobbins et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,123, Distributed Autonomous Object Architectures For Network Layer Routing, Apr. 16, 1996) discusses an object-oriented architecture for network layer routing which distributes function and system behavior into automomous router objects. Christensen et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,687, Method And System In A Local Area Network Switch For Dynamically Changing Operating Modes, Feb. 13, 1996) discusses a local area network (LAN) switch having means for switching modes of operation in response to a rate at which frames having an error pass through such a LAN switch. Judd et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,251, Network Addressing, Nov. 7, 1995) discusses a network addressing scheme in which a message sent from a source node to a destination node includes a path address which defines the path over which the message should travel to reach the destination node. Norizuki et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,510, Apparatus And A Method For Supervising And Controlling ATM Traffic, Oct. 18, 1994) discusses an apparatus for supervising and controlling asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) traffic, and which collects traffic information. The apparatus comprises a cell detecting unit, an idle cell detecting unit, a cell counting unit, an idle cell counting unit, an idle cell rate detecting unit, and a control unit. From my study of these exemplars and of the prior art, I believe that there is a need for a more effective and improved method for formation of a switching network in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) on basis of a "Banyan" network, as in the present invention.